Paul Kildea (Author, Austrailian conductor, Artistic Director of Musica Vivia Australia.)
Paul Kildea is a multifaceted talent who has written an interesting biography of Frederic Chopin and a lesser-known Polish musician, Wanda Landowska, who revivified Chopin’s music.
Frederic Francois Chopin (1810-1849, Composer and virtuoso pianist.)
Whether one knows anything of music or history, Kildea expertly entertains listener/readers with “Chopin’s Piano”.
Chopin is noted as a Romanticist composer considered among the most creative of all time. For that reason, the sound of Chopin’s work has changed with the times.
There are several ironies in Kildea’s history of Chopin. Chopin is shown to have been pleased by being considered French though he was Polish. Chopin is characterized as anti-Semitic though at times financially supported by Jews and resurrected by a world-renowned harpsichordist, Wanda Landowska, a proud and nationalist Pole who escaped Nazi persecution and extermination. Landowska, a woman of the Jewish faith, flees Paris when Germany invades France.
Wanda Landowska in front of the Bauza piano owned by Chopin.
One of her treasured pianos is the Bauza piano used by Chopin to create his greatest masterpieces, the Preludes.
George Sand (1804-1876, French novelist and 10 year companion of Chopin)
Kildea reflects on Chopin’s diminutive physique and self-effacing nature. Chopin never marries but has a ten-year relationship with George Sand, a divorced woman with a broadly libertine reputation.
One wonders what Sand’s influence is on Chopin’s creativity. What Kildea explains is that Sand admires Chopin’s dedication to music and supports Chopin through his frail health during the most productive period of his life. However, at the end of their ten year relationship, Sand leaves because the burden of their relationship is either too much or she just chooses to return to a life of independence.
The thread of Kildea’s history is the Bauza piano’s location in the 21st century. It’s whereabouts remains unknown.
This piano was used by Chopin between 1838-39 when living with George Sand in Majorca. A striking point in Kildea’s story is that the Bauza piano is a crudely formed instrument carved from local softwood. Its innards are made of felt, pig iron, and copper but its cultural importance is extraordinary and its provenance unquestioned. It disappeared when confiscated by Nazi Germany when they ransacked Landowska’s home in Paris.
Wanda Landowska in 1953.
The last half of Kildea’s story is about the trials and achievements of Wanda Landowska. In reflecting on Landowska’s rise to fame, the Bauza piano is a symbol of Chopin’s creative genius.
This flawed instrument is used to create compositions that are endlessly translated by pianoforte (soft and loud sound) from the use of harpsicords to modern Steinways. Landowska, and many pianists of the 19th through the 21st century are listed by Kildea, showing the brilliance and variety of Chopin’s compositions. Only a musical conductor turned author like Kildea could explain this to the public. “Chopin’s Piano” is a small opening to a big world.
Lanier’s memoir illustrates how refinement of virtual reality is as groundbreaking as Da Vinci’s understanding of light. History will not likely view Lanier as the Da Vinci of our era but there are interesting similarities.
Not to carry the comparison too far, Lanier magnifies the value of imagination without limiting its potential for both human good and evil.
Da Vinci designs weapons of war that purposely fed the ambitions of his era’s tyrants.
Lanier is one of the pioneers of facial recognition. Facial recognition is a tool that can be used by humanities’ tyrants as well as benefactors. In conjunction with digitizing the lives of everyone, facial recognition implies a “Brave New World” as eminently realizable.
A visit to China reinforces potential loss of privacy and human volition with the advance of a digitized and monitored population.
One comes away from Lanier’s memoir with an appreciation for his candor about life and his unshaken belief in the value of technology. He recognizes his personal imperfection while maintaining an optimistic view for the world’s rescue by AI as a tool rather than controller of human life. There is some comfort in his opinion, but a listener reserves judgement based on the life Lanier has led. He is undoubtedly a polymath but his memoir focuses more on pleasures than the reality of most people’s lives.
The principle of virtual reality lends itself to Lanier’s obsession with music and entertainment.
Lanier is a musician, among many other talents. He spends some of his time collecting and mastering abstruse musical instruments.
One comes away from “Dawn of the New Everything” with the feeling that VR has greater potential for distraction than humanity’s betterment. There is respite from this perception with Lanier’s explanation of how VR is used for education and training. It is a virtual tool for medical and science education.
On the other hand, VR is a tool for remote murder by a person guiding a drone.
B.F. Skinner, American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher.
Lanier also notes that VR has the potential of making life conform to other’s interest.
The “Dawn of Everything” gives a clearer picture of what it was and is like to become a part of the Silicon Valley. He candidly recounts his rise as a tech mogul, failure, and gadfly.
Facebook and Twitter addiction are influencers with WMD potential.
Lanier’s memoir is at once enlightening and disheartening. He offers a virtual picture of modern life that is influencing, but not yet controlling. Lanier is optimistic. Many listeners will leave his memoir skeptical.
Robert Greenberg (American composer, pianist, and musicologist.)
Robert Greenberg offers an introduction to the history of classical music and opera. Its appeal is to a wide audience of dilettantes that know a little but not a lot about anything. Greenberg argues classical music’ and opera’ composition is a creation of its time. (Undoubtedly true of all music and theatre.)
However, Greenberg supports his argument with a fascinating critique of classical composers and events of history that influence composers’ work. Greenberg argues that one can better understand classical “Music as a Mirror of History”.
In reflecting on the history of music, Greenberg offers his perception of the era in which music is composed. He makes wry comments about each era with the hindsight of an obviously well-read consumer of history. At the same time, Greenberg offers expert analysis of classical music and its composers. With snippets of each composer’s work, an Audiobook is a perfect venue for his presentation.
Edward VI (King of England 1547-1553, crowned at the age of nine.)
Mary I of England (Queen of England 1553-1558)
Queen Elizabeth I (r 1558-1603, daughter of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.)
English religion wavered back and forth between Roman Catholicism’s control by the Pope and the Church of England’s control by the King of England. English King Henry the VIII demands control of Catholicism (particularly the church’s land assets and taxes collected on those assets).
After two failed royals (after King Henry VIII’s death), Elizabeth stabilizes England’s governance. She reigns from 1558-1603. Greenberg explains the many challenges facing Queen Elizabeth before she gains the throne.
Greenberg notes Queen Elizabeth’s reign is a perceived golden era, in spite of the squalor of 16th century London living.
Greenberg notes that Queen Elizabeth is the first English monarch, after two predecessors, to sustain Henry VIII’s Church of England. With Queen Elizabeth’s reign, the King, not the Pope, controls the role of Catholicism in England.
Greenberg begins by explaining how madrigals reflect the myths of nationalism. He defines a madrigal as a song for several voices, without instrumental accompaniment. Madrigals began in the 14th century in Italy but Greenberg introduces Thomas Morley, a composer in the 16th century.
Thomas Morley’s Piaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke (1557)
Morley is a 16th century composer. He composes a madrigal to Elizabeth I. As is typical of this form of music, it idealizes England’s suzerainty and Elizabeth’s reign as Queen of England.
Greenberg moves on to the 18th century. He introduces George Frideric Handel. Though Handel is German, he chooses to move to London, after successfully touring Italy. Greenberg notes Handel tells his Prussian patron (King Frederick I) that his sojourn to London is only temporary, but Handel’s intent is to stay.
George Frideric Handel (1685-1959)
King Frederick I of Prussia (1657-1713)
Handel persuades the King of Prussia to allow him to stay in England by dedicating the three suites of “The Water Music” to him.
Ironically, Handel becomes renowned in London for his “Water Music”, even though its dedicated to a foreign monarch. Greenberg offers a snippet of the 1717 “Water Music” which makes one interested in hearing more.
Handel composes the opera Rinaldo that makes him the toast of London in 1719. His most famous work is “Messiah”, an oratorio (an orchestra and voices production) composed in 1741. He becomes an English citizen in 1727, goes blind in 1751, and dies in London, in 1759.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Moving on, Greenberg introduces Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. As one may remember from the movie, Mozart is a phenom with an unusual predilection for risqué ideas. Greenberg notes this is the time of the rise of the Ottoman empire.
Turkish influence is widely adopted in the late 18th century. Mozart capitalizes on its popularity with the opera called “The Abduction from the Harem”. In spite of Mozart’s introduction of Turkish influence in music, Greenberg explains Mozart is fatally affected by the rise of the Ottoman empire because of its economic impact on Europe.
Mozart falls ill in Prague and dies in poverty in Vienna, at the age of 35. Greenberg suggests Mozart brings Turkish influence into opera’s mainstream with the Ottoman Empire’s expansion.
Greenberg reflects on the Napoleonic era and its affect on Haydn and Beethoven who were great composers of their time, and ours. Greenberg’s characterization of these composer’s view Napoleon with “ambivalence”.
Napoleon began his conquests with an image as liberator (from religious persecution, royalty, and social inequality), but when he crowned himself as Emperor, many felt betrayed. The betrayal was Napoleon’s pact with the Roman Catholic Church and his assumption of the throne as Emperor of France.
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Emperor Napoleon.
As Austrians, both Haydn and Beethoven reviled Napoleon’s royal ascension. Haydn composed “Mass in the Time of War” that memorialized Napoleon’s creation of a war machine that threatened Vienna.
Beethoven composed “Wellington’s Victory” in 1813 that became his most successful composition. Ironically, Greenberg suggests that “Wellington’s Victory” is one of Beethoven’s lesser musical achievements. He argues that Beethoven creates a bombastic rather than melodic tribute to the English general that defeated Napoleon at Waterloo.
This is only a small part of what Greenberg covers in this 24-lecture series. He analyzes Russian composers and their early disdain for European musical traditions. Greenberg observes Russia is shown to be a “…riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”, as referred to by Winston Churchill.
Johann Strauss I (1804-1849, created the Radetsky March, known for waltzes but better known as the father of Johann Strauss II.)
Johann Strauss II (1825-1899, composer of light music, particlarly dance music-waltzes,polkas, quadrilles, etc. and operettas.)
Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869, a child protegy that introduced slave music and the precursor to Jazz in America.)
Greenberg touches on the histories of the Straus family (a father and son who competed against each other), Brahms, Gottschalk (an American composer surprisingly unknown by many), Verdi, Wagner, Dvorak, Rimsky-Korsakov, Holst, Berg (who composed an opera reflecting on the madness of war), Shostakovich, Copland, Gorecki, and Crumb.
Wilhelm Richard Wagner (1813-1883, German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor.)
Of interest is Greenberg’s analysis of Richard Wagner because of Wagner’s repugnant philosophy, but incredibly inventive and beautiful operas.
“The Ring of the Nibelung” reminds one of Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”. Greenberg explains “The Ring…” is a critique of 19th century European society and its self-interested pursuit of capitalist wealth. Greenberg infers the subject is ironic because Wagner pursues wealth as diligently as any European of that era. The repugnant part is the horrendous and false accusations made against people of the Jewish faith by Wagner and his acolytes (one of which becomes Adolph Hitler).
Of note is recognition of Rimsky-Korsakov as one of Opera’s greatest composers.
Greenberg notes that anti-European sentiment of earlier Russian composers is still present but Rimsky-Korsakov studies much of what is practiced by European composers. “The Golden Cockeral” is Rimsky-Korsakov’s last opera. It is based on a Pushkin’ poem but staged as a parody of the failure of Russian Royal’ leadership.
Tsar Nicholas II (1868-1918, assassinated by the Bolsheviks.)
To the Russian Tsar’s dismay, it is an opera that satirizes the autocracy of Russian imperialism and Russia’s inept war with Japan in 1904-05.
Greenberg shows Rimsky-Korsadov’s life as example of how current times mirror a composer’s work. Tsar Nicholas II is not pleased with “The Golden Cockeral”. Rimsky-Korsakov retires, but one wonders if his last opera is not a forewarning of 1917.
(Greenberg notes that Rimsky-Korsakov draws some of his operatic ideas from fairy tales).
One wonders what he could have composed if “Animal Farm” (published in 1945) had been written in his life time.
Greenberg finishes music’s mirror of history in the 1970s with a review of Gorecki and Crumb. This is an enlightening tour of classical music. It offers many reasons for modern audiences to attend symphony and opera performances.
“Words without Music” is a memoir of Philip Glass’s transformation to creative adult. This is a journey taken by every child–with greater and lesser degrees of actualized creativity.
Glass explains how love by others transforms his life and why self-actualization is the fountain of creativity. This is certainly not a new revelation. Socrates, through the words of Plato, characterizes self-actualization in the dictum of “know thy self”. Self-actualization is explained as the penultimate goal of life by Abraham Maslow.
Glass recounts his childhood with a description of his ex-Marine father, and school teacher mother. Glass’s father is a small business entrepreneur who raises his children in a rough New York neighborhood. Strength, determination, and adventurousness come from Glass’s father.
Glass explains how his father feared little in a neighborhood of gangs; while managing his record business with an iron hand. Glass learns how to overcome fear in working in his father’s record shop and taking the proceeds of the day to the bank at the end of the day. Glass sees himself, as though in a mirror, when he chooses not to tell his father of a customer’s theft of a record. Glass knows his father will act reflexively by over-zealously punishing the thief.
Glass describes the soul of his family as his mother. She is the conservator, the method-of-living key to Glass’s growth as an artist.
Glass strives to be a good student and is accepted by the University of Chicago based on academic tests rather than high school graduation. He chooses to become a musician based on early experience as a flutist, and later as a pianist. He finds from counseling with a Julliard alumnus that composing rather than playing music is more conducive to his innate ability. In these pursuits, Glass’s mother is his rock, his supporter and adviser.
After graduating, Glass chooses to travel to Paris in pursuit of a composer’s education. He is mentored by an older woman who provides the technical skill and stern loving support he needs to continue his journey toward actualization. Glass chooses to leave his mentor with a woman of his own age and travel to India. Glass sees himself in a way that requires reinforcement from others. “Others” are teachers of the ancient practice of yoga.
Glass returns to America with a wife, with whom he has two children. He lives in New York and works as a furniture mover and taxi driver while pursuing his education as a composer. Glass is approaching thirty. He begins to have serendipitous success. The first big break is an opera called “Einstein on the Beac
Jean Cocteau (1889-1963, Novelist, Poet, Artist, Film Maker
Glass’s journey is symbolized by his dissection of the works of Jean Cocteau; i.e. particularly La_Belle_et_la_Bête (Beauty and the Beast). Glass argues that Cocteau’s works are about human creativity and transformation. The symbolism in La_Belle_et_la_Bête is the story of Glass’s life. The rose in Cocteau’s movie symbolizes beauty (Glass’s body of work). The key is the method (Glass’s mother). The horse is strength, determination, and speed (Glass’s father). The glove is nobility (Glass’s renown as a composer). The castle is a prison that can only be escaped with love from another (Glass’s three wives, his children, his mentors, and friends). The Mirror symbolizes who you truly are (this memoir of Glass’s life).
This is a nicely written and narrated memoir of Philip Glass; considered by many as the most influential composer of the late twentieth century.
“Words without Music” is a memoir of Philip Glass’s transformation to creative adult. This is a journey taken by every child–with greater and lesser degrees of actualized creativity. Glass explains how love by others transforms his life and why self-actualization is the fountain of creativity. This is certainly not a new revelation. Socrates, through the words of Plato, characterizes self-actualization in the dictum of “know thy self”. Self-actualization is explained as the penultimate goal of life by Abraham Maslow.
Glass recounts his childhood with a description of his ex-Marine father, and school teacher mother. Glass’s father is a small business man who raises his children in a rough New York neighborhood. Strength, determination, and adventurousness come from Glass’s father.
PHILIP GLASS (WITH HIS FATHER, A RECORD STORE OWNER, WHO SENT HIS SON TO HIGH-END MUSIC SCHOOLS)
The soul of Glass’s family is his mother. She is the conservator, the method-of-living key to Glass’s growth as an artist. Glass explains how his father feared little in a neighborhood of gangs; while managing his record business with an iron hand.
Glass learns how to overcome fear in working in his father’s record shop and taking the proceeds of the day to the bank at the end of the day. Glass sees himself, as though in a mirror, when he chooses not to tell his father of a customer’s theft of a record. Glass knows his father will act reflexively by overzealously punishing the thief.
WOMEN ARE THE SUN, THE SOURCE OF ENERGY AROUND WHICH MEN REVOLVE. (In Glass’s pursuits, he notes that his mother is his rock, his supporter and adviser.)
Glass strives to be a good student and is accepted by the University of Chicago based on academic tests rather than high school graduation. Glass chooses to become a musician based on early experience as a flutist, and later as a pianist. He finds from counseling, from a Julliard alumnus, that composing music rather than playing music is more conducive to his innate ability. In these pursuits, Glass’s mother is his rock, his supporter and adviser.
After graduating, Glass chooses to travel to Paris in pursuit of a composer’s education. He is mentored by an older woman who provides the technical skill and stern loving support he needs to continue his journey toward actualization. Glass chooses to leave his mentor with a woman of his own age and travel to India. Glass sees himself in a way that requires reinforcement from others. “Others” are teachers of the ancient practice of yoga.
PHILIP GLASS AND HIS FAMILY IN 1973
Glass returns to America with a wife, with whom he has two children. He lives in New York and works as a furniture mover and taxi driver while pursuing his education as a composer. Glass is approaching thirty. He begins to have serendipitous success. The first big break is an opera called “Einstein on the Beach”.
JEAN COCTEAU (1889-1963, NOVELIST, POET, ARTIST, FILM MAKER)
Glass’s journey is symbolized by his dissection of the works of Jean Cocteau; i.e. particularly La_Belle_et_la_Bête (Beauty and the Beast). Glass argues that Cocteau’s works are about human creativity and transformation. The symbolism in La_Belle_et_la_Bête is the story of Glass’s life. The rose in Cocteau’s movie symbolizes beauty (Glass’s body of work). The key is the method (Glass’s mother). The horse is strength, determination, and speed (Glass’s father). The glove is nobility (Glass’s renown as a composer). The castle is a prison that can only be escaped with love from another (Glass’s three wives, his children, his mentors, and friends). The Mirror symbolizes who you truly are (this memoir of Glass’s life).
This is a nicely written and narrated memoir of Philip Glass; considered by many as the most influential composer of the late twentieth century.
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